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From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: D & D : Today Show 9/26
Message-ID: <742@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 18:12:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.742
Posted: Mon Sep 30 18:12:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 08:21:31 EDT
References: <282@pedsgd.UUCP>
Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath)
Distribution: net
Organization: The Cat Factory
Lines: 40
Summary: 

In article <282@pedsgd.UUCP> bobh@pedsgd.UUCP (Bob Halloran) writes:
>Because of a late start today, I got to see the Today show this morning.
>They did a short item on 'the problem of D & D'; they spoke to two or
>three players, then spoke with a psychologist (the same Dr. Redecki (sp?)
>as appeared on the recent '60 Minutes' story), and the director of
>the Gifted/Talented Children's Program in San Francisco.  The psych
>brought up the '48 proven cases' of D & D involvement in teenage suicides
>or murders; when asked by the interviewer about the instances where
>police departments have later disclaimed said involvement, he brushed
>it off saying it was due to threats of legal action by TSR Company.
>The woman from the G/T program then went after him, asking, as I would,
>where the parents of these victims were, what kind of home life did
>they have?  She agreed that any game taken to excess could cause
>trouble, but that her experience with her own children and those in
>the program was that it was completely managable IF THE PARENTS PROVIDE
>SOME SUPERVISION...

>                        ... I felt that it made an interesting counterpoint
>to the recent 60 Minutes piece, where D & D definitely seemed to come
>out as something bad.

Just a note for net.kids readers.  A discussion of the 60  Minutes  segment
on D&D and teenage suicide has been going on in net.games.frp (and a little
in net.suicide) for over a week.  Without going into details  here,  I  did
some  research  on  national  teenage  suicide  statistics  and  found that
teenagers who play D&D are _less_ likely to commit suicide than the average
teenager  by  a  factor  of ~35 to 1! (based on 60 Minutes' own figures and
those available from  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  and  the  L.A.  Suicide
Prevention Center.

Apparently this information isn't controversial enough to be  mentioned  on
television.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe)
Citicorp(+)TTI                    Common Sense is what tells you that a ten
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.             pound weight falls ten times as fast as a
Santa Monica, CA  90405           one pound weight.
(213) 450-9111, ext. 2483
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